


No Stars in the Sky

by Barkour



Category: ReBoot (TV)
Genre: Episode Tag, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-22
Updated: 2012-11-22
Packaged: 2017-11-19 07:16:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 677
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/570633
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Barkour/pseuds/Barkour
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It is AndrAIa's first night in Mainframe and she cannot sleep.</p>
            </blockquote>





	No Stars in the Sky

"AndrAIa."

She turned. The room was dark; she saw. Enzo's slight hands were crossed at his belly, the left hand pillowed on top of the right hand. He was very relaxed. Unguarded. It was his room.

"Are you asleep?"

"No," said AndrAIa. "I cannot sleep." The air was dry. She was alert, ever, for a threat that was not there, no whispering eels, no fanged weeds. Mainframe was safe. She could not sleep.

Enzo shifted from his back to his side. His knees pulled up. The right hand tucked under his pillow. The left hand rested on the edge of the (bed).

"Good," he whispered. He was smiling. His nose squished when he smiled, and an irregularity in the spacing of his flat teeth showed to the right of his front teeth. "Me, neither."

His fingers were lax.

"Are you worried?" she asked.

"About Dot?" He blew his lips out. "Naw. We just have to whisper."

AndrAIa laced her fingers together on top of her belly. Left hand on top of the right. If he could see in the dark, and he could not, then he would see her nails, and he would know she meant no harm to him.

Enzo leaned up on his elbow. His hair, bared, was rumpled. So too were the soft corners of his eyes. Her gut quailed.

"Are you okay?" he asked.

"I am fine," said AndrAIa. "The--" She hesitated.

"Bed," said Enzo.

"Yes," said AndrAIa. "The bed your sister made me is very nice."

Enzo cleared his throat. "Sorry you have to sleep on the floor. But Dot'll get you a real bed tomorrow, I bet. And I guess we'll put you in the file room only it'll be your bedroom."

She studied his face; but what did she know of him?

"Do you not wish me to stay?" asked AndrAIa. "With you?"

He startled. "What?" He rose further; he leaned out into the dark, out over his bed, toward AndrAIa on the cot on the floor. "No, I mean, if Dot wouldn't go all server overload--"

But she could not let him finish, not when it was so near to her tongue. 

"I will not hurt you," said AndrAIa. "I promise that I will not ever hurt you."

"I know," said Enzo, but his face had folded, as if he did not understand. Perhaps he did not. "You saved all our bitmaps back in the game."

How could she explain it to him? She did not want to explain it to him. AndrAIa looked down to her hands, still set upon her gut, out where he could see.

"You are my first friend," said AndrAIa. That was the only way she knew. "You do not need to be afraid of me."

"I'm not," said Enzo. He'd sat up entirely now. She heard, acutely, the every minute rasp of the cloth sliding, of his breath seizing, of Enzo, turning fully to her. "I'm not afraid of you at all, AndrAIa--"

"You could not sleep."

"'Cause I'm so excited," said Enzo in a wild hush. "You're the first--I've got friends, like Frisket and Bob and--but you're--"

She looked at him.

"I guess you're my first friend, too," he said.

His hands had knotted in the sheets. His shoulders were tense; they bowed.

"Please don't go," he said.

"I cannot," said AndrAIa. "I do not know where I would go." She meant to tease, but quietly Enzo asked,

"Would you?"

So she said, "No. Not for all the treasure in Atlantis."

"It wasn't worth a whole lot anyway," he said. He was smiling again, a smaller smile with his lips closed.

"No," she agreed.

He stroked a finger over the edge of the bed. "You couldn't sleep either. Were you scared?"

AndrAIa smiled then, though he could not see. "Not if you are here."

"I'm not scared if you're here, too," said Enzo.

"Do not be," said AndrAIa. "I will protect you. So you can sleep now."

She liked that little gap in his teeth. She liked his laugh more.


End file.
